Tozer: the necessity of renunciation

Tuesday, June 9, 2009
    Feast of Columba, Abbot of Iona, Missionary, 597
    Commemoration of Ephrem of Syria, Deacon, Hymnographer, Teacher, 373

Meditation:
    The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
    "I will make you into a great nation
        and I will bless you;
    I will make your name great,
        and you will be a blessing.
    I will bless those who bless you,
        and whoever curses you I will curse;
    and all peoples on earth
        will be blessed through you."
    So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran.
    —Genesis 12:1-4 (NIV)

Quotation:
    If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.
    ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948], Wilder Publications, 2008, p. 24 (see the book)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me ready to follow You.

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